How can we possibly win? (2v2)

I realize, again, 2's are not that competitive in terms of balance. Regardless, I was having some fun playing exceptionally low rated 2v2, until we ran into DK/Resto Druid.

Firstly, our comp is Shadow Priest (me) / Resto Shaman. We have a 0% chance of killing either of them. If we hex the druid he just morphs out of it, and other than hex our only cc is my silence/fear, while good, it's not enough to burn the DK. It seems like going on the druid would be the natural choice, but the shaman does very little damage and windshear doesn't help when it seems 99% of the druids healing is instants.

We were 15-0 until we came up against this, and now we're just being ravaged by it every other game. Any help would be much appreciated.

---------- Post added 2013-04-23 at 09:09 AM ----------

P.S. Usually ends up me trying to kill the Shaman with dots on the DK for additional procs, and then he just trains down my shaman. If I use my orbs for the control then we have zero damage, same if I end up positioning myself to peel with scream, again, zero damage. Not sure what the answer is. Please, someone, save me. Lol.

I'm not 100% on this, some of this is speculation. A: He can't shift OUT of a hex, from what I understand, he can shift to avoid a hex, but not to get out of one.

So, I'd exhaust fears on the druid, while dpsing the dk. When you have 3 orbs get your healer to hex, if possible, then go ham on the dk. Your healer should be waiting to kick the incoming heal, because there will be a casted heal if you've put decent damage on the dk, from here try to fear.

It'll all have to be perfectly lined up, but it can be done. If you queue into it often you should get the rhythm down.

Another aspect, and you'll have to put enough damage out for this to work, is that if you don't get an early Anti-Magic Shell he'll use it when you go Ham, which will nullify your damage. Got to put out enough damage before 3 orbing to get AMS.

You won't win unfortunatly unless you severly overgear them or they play retardedly stupid. Any semidecent DK will dark sim hex and use it on your sham resulting in DK preassuring you more during cross-cc on healers, also he won't let you land a fear on healer outside of psy fiend becouse of grips and slows. Naturally eitheir he oom shaman through preassure or land a kill during dark simed cc/clones/silence. Going balls of the walls on druid isn't possible either since he can dispell hex from dk. In all honesty there's completly zero reasons for DK to ever switch from sp since even though shaman's pretty mana sustained healer DK can still OOM him sitting on priest meanwhille preventing lots of dmg. Add in a mix ams, ibf, pet sac, hots and you get the point.

I've had enough of such expiriences as demo lock/disc priest, actually i won most becouse going to demo form you spam instants + imps + pets dmg so it's harder to stop then sps dmg but there were few dk teams that dragged games to time limit. And tbh i'm confident that any dk could've done the same if they didn't overextend against us.

I'm not 100% on this, some of this is speculation. A: He can't shift OUT of a hex, from what I understand, he can shift to avoid a hex, but not to get out of one.

So, I'd exhaust fears on the druid, while dpsing the dk. When you have 3 orbs get your healer to hex, if possible, then go ham on the dk. Your healer should be waiting to kick the incoming heal, because there will be a casted heal if you've put decent damage on the dk, from here try to fear.

It'll all have to be perfectly lined up, but it can be done. If you queue into it often you should get the rhythm down.

Another aspect, and you'll have to put enough damage out for this to work, is that if you don't get an early Anti-Magic Shell he'll use it when you go Ham, which will nullify your damage. Got to put out enough damage before 3 orbing to get AMS.

You're right about not being able to shift hex, although what OP might be confused about is if hex lands at the same time he goes into form. Hex will land for a split second before he goes into form but it's only server lag.

I disagree with going on the DK, It's very unlikely you'll ever get a kill on him (depends what rating OP is at, if he's <1700 he might be able to global him in a silence with fear on Druid). In my opinion though, your best bet is to kill the Resto Druid.

Get 3 orbs, fear Druid into the open (you'll never get a kill while he's pillaring), have dots on Druid and DK. When you fear, tell your Shaman to put a cap totem down and try and stun the death knight (or kite him in for double fear on druid/dk). When he is CC'd you can free cast a hex on him (or put down a grounding and hardcast it, he might kick into grounding).

Both you and your Shaman then clean the Druid completely of all HoTs and buffs while he is feared - and then you use your trinket (or wait for proc trinket before fearing), Shadow fiend, 3 orb DP, mind blast proc and as soon as fear breaks, blanket silence and chase him down (or insanity). Assuming you're fully geared you'll probably get tree form, NS, maybe might of ursoc+battlemaster.

Stay alive for a minute with minor pressure on DK (dont use CDs on him, save them for Druid) and rinse repeat.

I realize, again, 2's are not that competitive in terms of balance. Regardless, I was having some fun playing exceptionally low rated 2v2, until we ran into DK/Resto Druid.

Firstly, our comp is Shadow Priest (me) / Resto Shaman. We have a 0% chance of killing either of them. If we hex the druid he just morphs out of it, and other than hex our only cc is my silence/fear, while good, it's not enough to burn the DK. It seems like going on the druid would be the natural choice, but the shaman does very little damage and windshear doesn't help when it seems 99% of the druids healing is instants.

We were 15-0 until we came up against this, and now we're just being ravaged by it every other game. Any help would be much appreciated.

---------- Post added 2013-04-23 at 09:09 AM ----------

P.S. Usually ends up me trying to kill the Shaman with dots on the DK for additional procs, and then he just trains down my shaman. If I use my orbs for the control then we have zero damage, same if I end up positioning myself to peel with scream, again, zero damage. Not sure what the answer is. Please, someone, save me. Lol.

Well, since you say you are playing on low rating I assume you are not fully geared yourself and even with full gear it is very hard to kill someone against healer/dd with healer/dd. You don't do as much overall damage as a dk, you don't do as much burst as a mage and you don't have as much reliable cc as a hunter (which arguably are the best classes for 2on2 with healer/dd).
But I don't think Druid/Dk are a particularl counter to your comp. You shouldn't win against any DK/Healer combination for that matter. In comparison DKs are pretty easy and straightforward to play on low rating and they are especially good at killing shamans. That's probably the reason why you loose against them.

Well, since you say you are playing on low rating I assume you are not fully geared yourself and even with full gear it is very hard to kill someone against healer/dd with healer/dd. You don't do as much overall damage as a dk, you don't do as much burst as a mage and you don't have as much reliable cc as a hunter (which arguably are the best classes for 2on2 with healer/dd).
But I don't think Druid/Dk are a particularl counter to your comp. You shouldn't win against any DK/Healer combination for that matter. In comparison DKs are pretty easy and straightforward to play on low rating and they are especially good at killing shamans. That's probably the reason why you loose against them.

A single DK shouldn't really be able to kill a shaman that easily though. From my experience they're more about permanent high damage instead of actual burst and that can be healed for a long time. Especially if the shadow supports properly and both utilize their abilities they should be able to stay alive indefinitely against this comp.

Funny thing though, it might be the same for the other side. Dk has a lot of anti caster stuff and thus wont drop all that easy either and unless the druid is braindead getting a hold on him might be fairly difficulty aswell. It's one of the situation where you wish the DK was with you, played some games for cap around 1,9 and my dk simply tunneled the enemy druid into the ground in 15-20 seconds after he came out of stealth.

A single DK shouldn't really be able to kill a shaman that easily though.

Well, I don't play druid/dk in 2s, only mw/dk, but every game we play against a resto shaman, we know it's a free win, because resto shaman is the easiest healer for a dk to kill by far - at least that's what my dk says and i think we never had a game that lasted more than 4 min against any resto shaman comp. I have to admit that it's easier to kill one with a mw though, because he can assist much more damage than a druid, but you should kill a shaman nevertheless, it just takes a bit longer.

Originally Posted by Deleth

From my experience they're more about permanent high damage instead of actual burst and that can be healed for a long time.

Necrotic strike kinda is burst and the overall damage of an unholy dk is insane (shado pan trinket is easy to get and pretty broken imo). Except for mistweavers we don't need more than 4-5 min to play any healer oom (mostly they are already dead before they go oom though).

Originally Posted by Deleth

Especially if the shadow supports properly and both utilize their abilities they should be able to stay alive indefinitely against this comp.

Since he is talking about low rating it's highly unlikely that they use their abilities perfectly. And a DK just has an easier life, because he justs needs to tunnel the shaman. He can't do much wrong.
But even if they play good they should die to a dk/healer. Only way to stay alive indefinitely would be to root (sp talent, don't remember the name) the dk on cooldown and like run away. You would still loose though - after 25 minutes

some comps in 2s are nigh on impossible (resto druid/unholy dk, holy pala/unholy dk spring to mind a lot lately).. just work out which comps you know youll compete for wins against and do your best. for the comps you cant win just treat them as training exercises to learn how they work.

I almost would think that the way to keep your shaman alive is with counter pressure. If you are hurting the druid enough to force the DK to peel you then you either get into the situation of a cross kill in which you should be able to go 1v1 against a DK, you get a kill before him and win, or you force him to play defensively and then you can setup a kill on the DK.

These are the things you should work to do in order to beat DK/Rdruid. First, kill the DK pet. You will have to kill it twice, but it will be worth it. You will have to kill it with cross cc or LoS. My advice would be to drag the pet behind a pillar and burst it down with cross CC of hex/silence. This will keep the DK and druid from healing it. He will get a new pet almost instantly, but after that will have to wait two minutes. This will cut down on a lot of his damage and control. Secondly, you guys need to play defensively around pillars. A DK is actually very kiteable, especially without a paladin to freedom him constantly. His damage will go down a lot if you are letting necro stacks fall off instead of trying to heal them off. Remember that when the DK summons his gargoyle you need to shackle it. That will stop a lot of his "burst". Once you get the DK to use AMS it is then time for a kill on the DK. You should be able to force AMS decently early, perhaps with a 2 orb while the druid eats a fear.

When it is time to go for the kill you have to setup this CC chain on the druid, and if the DK does not have AMS or a pet he cannot heal himself very much. You need to fear the druid while in caster form. The shaman needs to then hex the druid out of that fear. Be sure he does this before it actually wears off so he gets it off. It probably is a good idea to NS hex so it puts the pressure on the DK to prememptively try to steal it as apposed to broadcasting it with a cast. When the hex is going to wear off you need to silence the druid and that can then be followed by a capacitor totem. That should be a good enough CC chain to take a DK with no AMS down.

As far as helping your shaman live through the DK remember that you should be close to the shaman for link, you can fear the gargoyle and ghoul and then shackle the gargoyle, using a silence on a DK stops a lot of damage from him (strangulate, death coil, pestilence, blood boil, all of the DK defensives aside from death strike) and that rooting a DK with void tendrils forces him to either trinket, desecrated ground or kill the tendrils.

I actually think that you could win this game, but it will require a massive CC chain on the druid because you will have enough burst to get the DK to perhaps 25% but have problems finishing him off. Make sure when you are going for the kill that you have everything available. I mean, shaman casting, fire elemental, shadowfiend, etc.

Thank you for all the help. I have full malev but the shaman is still missing 3-4 pieces. Our CC chains are obviously not perfect yet, I'd fear into silence, but he'd miss the hex out of the silence, starting the cast too late and having the druid just morph the cast of the hex, which the dk dark sim'd always.

You can't really win if they play defensively, your best bet is if the druid overextends to kill the shaman and get him in a cc chain as you kill him or the death knight. On the other hand the druid/dk don't really have a chance of killing you guys if you play defensively, assuming that you peel (get void tendrils) for your shaman/kill the pet the dk won't have a significant uptime. The only chance of them killing you is if the druid goes offensive (generally kitty form, wrath spam can just be los'd/interrupted) and/or the dk using all his breaks offensively and then you have a chance to kill them as well. Assuming that both sides play "well", hf getting a draw, watch them edge out when everything lines up perfectly or win when the other side falls asleep (like most healer+dps vs healer+dps comps in 2s).

Unholy dk's are 2v2 gods
you can't beat a team that involves a unholy dk with a healer if they are somewhat skilled
unless you play unholy dk yourself

Originally Posted by Tyrean

I almost would think that the way to keep your shaman alive is with counter pressure. If you are hurting the druid enough to force the DK to peel you then you either get into the situation of a cross kill in which you should be able to go 1v1 against a DK, you get a kill before him and win, or you force him to play defensively and then you can setup a kill on the DK.

there's almost nothing that can put more preassure on a healer than an unholy dk ( in 2s of course, in 3s thats a whole different story )
if you let an unholy dk build NS stacks on your healer for more than 25-30 secs you pretty much lost the game, you dont have another option than peeling for your healer during dk's cooldowns

the only option i would see is get a full cc on the druid and blow the dk in 3 globals ( 3 orbs + trinket + pet + insanity ) with your shaman using lava burst and what not

So I played a little bit of DK/MW last night and it was actually kinda silly. We were playing high MMR or anything, but any 2dps teams just fell over dead with neither of is using much in the way of CD. The healer/dps comps we faced mostly came down to if they were also healer/DK and who played better. The only game we lost was against a UHDK/Hpal where the hpal got a drink off and my MW had no water to drink with.

I even played some games as frost just for lols and the damage output was just too much for teams to handle even though as frost I did have to use CDs to live some CC chains. The unholy games came down to CC and big necro stacks and the frost games came down to insane burst during CC.

I think the problem with DKs in general in 2v2 is a combination of CC outs (IBF/Lichborne/Desecrated Ground/AMS) and that mostly in 2v2 you can take asphyxiate stun which actually compliments pet stun quite well. (asphyx your kill target and have empowered pet charge interrupt healer into a 4 sec pet stun). I think it is a little bit unfun honestly, and I can see why double healer DK is working right now up to a certain rating.

I think in order to change it unholy needs a bigger damage reduction cost for sitting in blood presence like frost has, the proposed no sudden doom proc change is not enough really. I know I will continue to just sit in blood and be fat dumb and happy killing people. Other than that because of the way unholy DK has to whittle a team down instead of this sick burst most classes have it actually requires them to be somewhat tanky. Imagine a game that is built around burst but you are the only class that can't burst. If you can't outlive then you are worthless.